MORE TALES BY POLISH AUTHORS

TALES BY POLISH AUTHORS.
Translated by Else Benecke.
Crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d. net.

"This is a book to be bought and read; it cannot fail to be remembered.... The whole book is full of passionate genius.... It is delightfully translated."—The Contemporary Review.

OXFORD
B. H. BLACKWELL, BROAD ST.

MORE TALES BY
POLISH AUTHORS

TRANSLATED BY

ELSE C. M. BENECKE

AND

MARIE BUSCH

OXFORD
B. H. BLACKWELL, BROAD STREET
1916

NOTE

The translators' thanks are due to MM. Szymański and Żeromski for allowing their stories to appear in English; and to Mr. Nevill Forbes, Reader in Russian in the University of Oxford, Mr. Retinger, and Mr. Stefan Wolff, for granting permission on behalf of the three other authors (or their representatives) whose works are included in this volume; also to Miss Repszówa for much valuable help.

CONTENTS

POLISH PRONUNCIATION

Pan = Mr.
Pani = Mrs.
Panna = Miss.

MACIEJ THE MAZUR

By ADAM SZYMANSKI

After leaving Yakutsk I settled in X——, a miserable little town farther up the Lena. The river is neither so cold nor so broad here, but wilder and gloomier. Although the district is some thousands of versts nearer the civilized world, it contains few colonies. The country is rocky and mountainous, and the taiga[1] spreads over it in all directions for hundreds and thousands of versts. It would certainly be difficult to find a wilder or gloomier landscape in any part of the world than the vast tract watered by the Lena in its upper course, almost as far as Yakutsk itself. Taiga, gloomy, wild, and inaccessible, taiga as dense as a wall, covers everything here—mountains, ravines, plains, and caverns. Only here and there a grey, rocky cliff, resembling the ruin of a huge monument, rises against this dark background; now and then a vulture circles majestically over the limitless wilderness, or its sole inhabitant, an angry bear, is heard growling.

The few settlements to be found nestle along the rocky banks of the Lena, which is the only highway in this as in all parts of the Yakutsk district. Continual intercourse with Nature in her wildest moods has made the people who live in these settlements so primitive that they are known to the ploughmen in the broad valleys along the Upper Lena, and to the Yakutsk shepherds, as "the Wolves."

The climate is very severe here, and, although the frosts are not as sharp and continuous as in Yakutsk, this country, on account of being the nearest to the Arctic regions, is exposed to the cruel Yakutsk north wind. This is so violent that it even sweeps across to the distant Ural Mountains.

At the influx of the great tributary of the Lena there is a large basin; it was formed by the common agency of the two rivers, and subsequently filled up with mud. This basin is surrounded on every side by fairly high mountains, at times undulating, at times steep. Its north-eastern outlet is enclosed by a very high and rocky range, through which both rivers have made deep ravines. X——, the capital of the district inhabited by the "Wolf-people," lies in this north-eastern corner of the basin, partly on a small low rock now separated from the main chain by the bed of the Lena, partly at the foot of the rock between the two rivers. The high range of mountains forming the opposite bank of the Lena rises into an enormous rocky promontory almost facing the town. Flat at the top and overgrown by a wood, the side towards the town stands up at a distance of several hundred feet as a perpendicular wall planed smooth with ice, thus narrowing the horizon still more. As though to increase the wildness of the scenery presented by the mountains and rocks surrounding the dark taiga, a fiendish kind of music is daily provided by the furious gales—chiefly north—which prevail here continually, and bring the early night frosts in summer, and ceaseless Yakutsk frosts and snowstorms in winter. The gale, caught by the hills and resounding from the rocks, repeats its varied echoes within the taiga, and fills the whole place with such howling and moaning that it would be easy for you to think you had come by mistake into the hunting-ground of wolves or bears.

It was somewhere about the middle of November, a month to Christmas. The gale was howling in a variety of voices, as usual, driving forward clouds of dry snow and whirling them round in its mad dance. No one would have turned a dog into the street. The "Wolf-people" hid themselves in their houses, drinking large quantities of hot tea in which they soaked barley or rye bread, while the real wolves provided the accompaniment to the truly wolfish howling of the gale. I waited for an hour to see if it would abate; however, as this was not the case, I set out from the house, though unwillingly.

I had promised Stanisław Światełki some days beforehand that I would go to him one day in the course of the week to write his home letters for him—"very important letters," as he said. It was now Saturday, so I could postpone it no longer. Stanisław was lame, and, on account of both his lameness and his calling, he rarely left the house. He came from the district of Cracow—from Wiślica, as far as I recollect—and prided himself on belonging to one of the oldest burgher families of the Old Town, a family which, as far as fathers' and grandfathers' memories could reach, had applied itself to the noble art of shoemaking. Stanisław, therefore, was also a shoemaker, the last in his family; for although the family did not become extinct in him, nevertheless, as he himself expressed it, "Divine Providence had ordained" that he should not hand down his trade to his son.

"God has brought him up, sir, and it seems to have been His will that the shoemaker Światełkis should come to an end in me," Stanisław used to say. He had a habit of talking quickly, as if he were rattling peas on to a wall. Only at very rare moments, when something gave him courage and no strangers were present, he would add: "Though His judgments are past finding out.... What does it matter? Why, my grandson will be a shoemaker!" He would then grow pale from having expressed his secret thought, turn round quickly, as though looking for something, shift uneasily, and—as I noticed sometimes—unconsciously spit and whisper to himself: "Not in an evil hour be it spoken, Lord!" thereby driving away the spell from his dearest wish.

He was of middle height, fair, but nearly grey, and had lost all his teeth. He wore a beard, and had a broad, shapeless nose and large, hollow eyes; it was difficult to say what kind of person he was as long as he sat silent. But only let him move—which, notwithstanding the inseparable stick, he always did hastily, not to say feverishly—only let him pour out his quick words with a tongue moving like a spinning-wheel, and no one who had ever seen a burgher of pure Polish blood could fail to recognize him as a chip of the old block. Stanisław had not long carried on his trade in X——. Having scraped together some money as foreman, he had started a small shop; but he was chiefly famous in the little town as the one maker of good Polish sausages. He had a house next door to the shop, consisting of one room and a tiny kitchen. He did not keep a servant; a big peasant, known as Maciej, prepared his meals and gave him companionship and efficient protection. Hitherto, however, I had known very little of this man.

I did not often visit Światełki, and as a rule only when I wanted to buy something. So we had chatted in the shop, and I had only seen Maciej in passing. But I had noticed him as something unusually large. He was, indeed, huge; not only tall, but, as rarely happens, broad in proportion. It was this which gave his whole figure its special characteristics, and made it seem imposing rather than tall.

A house calculated for ordinary people he found narrow. Furniture standing far enough apart to suit the average man hampered Maciej. He could not take two steps in the house without knocking against something. He trod cautiously and very slowly, continually looking round; and he always had the ashamed air of a man who feels himself out of place and is persuaded that his strongest efforts will not save him from doing absurd things. I had seen Maciej a few times when, in Światełki's absence, he had taken his place in the shop, where the accommodation was fairly limited. An expression almost of suffering was depicted on his broad face, and especially noticeable when, on approaching the passage between the shelves and the counter, he stood still a moment and measured the extent of the danger with an anxious look. That it existed was undoubted, for the shelves were full of glasses and jugs of all kinds, so that one push could do no little harm. It was a real Scylla and Charybdis for him. He looked indescribably comical, and was so much worried that after a few minutes the drops of perspiration ran off his forehead. Once I found him there in utter misery, waiting for someone to come. For he had fancied, when going through this passage after settling with a customer, that he had knocked against something behind him, and, not being able to ascertain what it was, he stood and waited, afraid to move until someone came.

"God be praised that you've come!" he exclaimed with delight. "I am fixed here as sure as a Jew comes to a wedding. He's gone away and doesn't mean to come back! Good Lord! how little room there is here! I've knocked against some teapot or other, and can't move either way. The devil take all these shelves!" He continued his lamentations when I had set him free. "It's always like this; it's a real misfortune, this want of room. But what does it matter to him? He fits in here; though he has to help himself with a stick, he can spin round like a top."

"He" was, of course, the shoemaker, for Maciej's stupidity caused frequent bickerings, which, however, never became serious between them. Maciej's unwieldiness and awkwardness irritated the nervous, agile shoemaker; while, on the other hand, Maciej could not understand the shoemaker's quickness. But this was not their only cause of contention. The shoemaker, a burgher, was to a certain extent a man of position, with a deep sense of his higher rank; he wore a coat, and had needs which Maciej regarded as entirely superfluous—in fact, those of a gentleman. In addition, the shoemaker was the owner of the house, and Maciej's employer.

Apart from all this, however, the antagonism revealed in their mutual relations was not deep-seated, but in reality superficial. The shoemaker grumbled at Maciej, and sometimes made fun of him; but he always did it as if he were on equal terms with him, observing the respect due to a peasant of some standing—that is, he always used the form "you," and not "thou," in addressing him. Maciej usually received the shoemaker's grumbling in silence, but sometimes answered his taunts pretty sharply. Besides their common fate and present equality in the eyes of the law, other weighty reasons had an influence in making bearable the relations between people of different classes in one small room.

In comparison with Maciej, the shoemaker possessed intelligence of which the latter could never even have dreamt. The shoemaker could read, and—what gave him a special charm, and no little authority in Maciej's eyes—he could scrawl the eighteen letters of his Christian and surname, although slowly, and always with considerable difficulty. To Maciej's credit, on the other hand, besides his physical strength—that brute force which impresses even those who are not lame—stood the fact that he took service more from motives of comradeship than of necessity. For he possessed capital of his own, having made several hundred roubles, which were deposited at present at the shoemaker's house. Moreover—the most important thing of all—he was a conscientious and honest man. When, before knowing this, I asked the shoemaker in conversation if he could trust Maciej completely, since he lived alone with him and often left him in the shop, he repeated my question with so much astonishment that I at once realized its thorough inappropriateness. He repeated it, and, not speaking quickly, as usual, but slowly and emphatically, he gave me this answer: "Maciej, sir, is a man—of gold."

Immediately on my arrival the shop was closed and we went into the house. A small table with a chair on either side stood under the only window of the little room. Close behind the chairs there was a bed along one wall, and a small wooden sofa along the other. A narrow opening opposite the table led to the kitchen where Maciej lived. We sat down to consult what to write. Not only the shoemaker, but even Maciej, was in an extremely serious mood; both evidently attached no little importance to the writing of letters. The shoemaker fetched from a trunk a large parcel tied up in a sheet of paper, and, having taken out the last letters from his wife and son, handed them carefully to me. Maciej squeezed himself into the kitchen, and did not return to us. A moment later, however, his head with the large red face—but his head only—showed like the moon against the dark background of the opening.

"Why do you go so far away, Maciej?" I asked.

"Eh, you see, sir, it's not comfortable sitting in there. I've knocked a bench together here that's a bit stronger."

The shoemaker mumbled something about breaking the chairs, but Maciej busied himself with his pipe and did not hear, or pretended not to hear.

We began to read the letters. The letter from his wife contained the usual account of daily worries, interspersed with wishes for his return and the hope of yet seeing him. The letter from his son, who had finished his apprenticeship as journeyman joiner half a year ago, was sufficiently frivolous. After telling his father that he was now free, he wrote that, as he could not always get work, he was unable to make the necessary amount of money to buy himself a watch, and he begged his father to send him thirteen roubles or more for this purpose. I finished reading this, and looked at the shoemaker, who was carefully watching the impression the letter was making on me. I tried to look quite indifferent; whether I succeeded to any extent I do not know, for I did not look straight at him. But I was convinced after a moment that my efforts had been vain, for I heard the anxious question: "Well, and what else, sir?" It was clear that his son's letter was very painful to him, even more so than I had supposed.

"Here am I, trying and working all I can, so that in case I return there may be something to live upon and I mayn't have to beg in my old age, and that fool——"

We both began to remonstrate with him that it was unnecessary to take this to heart, and that his son was probably—in fact, certainly—a very good lad, only perhaps a little spoilt, especially if he was the only child.

"Of course he is the only one, for I have never even seen him."

"How—never?"

"Yes, really never; because—I remember it as if it were to-day—it was five o'clock in the evening. I was doing something in the backyard, when my neighbour, Kwiatkowski, called out to me from behind the wooden fence: 'God help you, Stanisław, for they are coming after you!' I only had time to run up to the window and call out: 'Good-bye, Basia; remember St. Stanisław will be his patron!' That's all I said. Basia was confined shortly after, but I didn't see her again. So it was a good thing I said it, for now there'll always be something to remember me by."

"God be praised that it's so! but if it hadn't been a son——"

Maciej did not finish his sentence, however, for the offended shoemaker began to reprimand him sternly.

"You are talking nonsense, Maciej, and it is not for the first time! Does not the Church also give the name of St. Stanisława? Besides, though I am a sinner as every man is, couldn't I guess that a word spoken at a moment like that would carry weight with the Almighty? Isn't everything in God's hand?"

Maciej looked down, and a deep sigh was the only testimony to the shoemaker's eloquence.

Stanisław's explanation of the circumstances lightened our task very much, and when he had remembered that the mother never complained of her son—on the contrary, was always satisfied with him—we succeeded in calming his excessive anxiety concerning the fate of his only child. In order to settle the matter thoroughly, it was decided to ask some responsible and enlightened person to examine the lad as he should think fit and to keep an eye on him in future, reporting the result of the examination to the father. This was arranged because the mother, being a simple and uneducated woman, was thought to be possibly much too fond of her only son, and an over-indulgent and blind judge. The only question was the choice of the individual—a sufficiently difficult matter; this one had died, that one had grown rich, the other had lately taken to drink. We meditated long, and would have meditated still longer, if finally the shoemaker had not said firmly, with the air of a man persuaded that he is speaking to the point:

"We will write to the priest!" And when Maciej, glad that the troublesome deliberation was over—possibly, also, in order to regain his position after having just said a stupid thing—hastily supported this with, "Yes, the priest will be best," I conceded to the majority.

Certain difficulties arose from the fact that the priest was not personally known to Światełki, and that, as Maciej put it, "the priest couldn't be approached just anyhow." These difficulties were overcome by the business-like shoemaker, who began by ordering a solemn Requiem Mass for the souls of his parents, for which he sent the priest ten roubles, and in this way commended his son to the kind consideration of his benefactor.

I began to write the letters, of which there were to be three: to his wife, to his son, and to the priest. In the course of my stay in Siberia I had written so many similar letters that I had gained no little facility in this kind of composition. I therefore wrote quickly, only asking for a few particulars. The shoemaker crept from the bed, on which he had hitherto been sitting, to the chair standing by the table, and bending over this followed the movement of my pen attentively, ready to answer any questions. Maciej cleaned out his pipe in silence. I finished the letters, and proceeded to read them.

Stanisław sent his wife fifty roubles. As he retained a most affectionate remembrance of his faithful Basia, loved her possibly more now than twenty years ago, and could never speak of her without deep emotion, the letter to her corresponded to the feelings of his youth. He was paler than usual as he listened to it, and he tried to say something, but his lips trembled and the words caught in his throat. When the reading was finished, however, Stanisław wriggled in the way peculiar to him, and, after blowing his nose several times, finally articulated: "Now I will sign." Having discovered his spectacles in the table drawer and duly fixed them on his nose, the shoemaker pointed to the place where the signature was to be put, and began:

"Es, tee." He had already opened his mouth to pronounce the third letter, when the incautious Maciej, who had behaved most properly while I was writing, unexpectedly interrupted with:

"If you would also——"

He burst in with this, but of course did not finish. The shoemaker laid down the pen, lifted his head high, so as to look through his spectacles at Maciej—who without doubt was already regretting his ill-timed remark—and said drily:

"Maciej, you are hindering me."

Maciej grew very red, and, naturally, did not utter another word. The shoemaker finished writing his name without further interruption, and took out the money. In order to avoid mistakes, he at once enclosed it with the letter in an addressed envelope.

However much Stanisław had wished during our consultation to "pull the silly fellow's ears," the letter to his son was indulgent rather than stern. It was easy to guess what that yet unseen son, the one hope of the old burgher family, was to Światełki. He had worked perseveringly and honestly for so many years, and had overcome all kinds of difficulties; lonely and neglected, he had passed victoriously through the temptations to enrich himself easily with which Siberia beguiles the unsuspecting novice. Doubtless he owed all this in a certain degree to the honest principles he had brought from his home and country, as well as to his character, but, without any doubt, equally to that son in whose very birth he saw the Hand of God. It was clear that the poor fellow dreamt of standing before his beloved child as an ascetic dreams of appearing at the Judgment-Seat. The thought that he would be able to tell him—openly and fearlessly—"I have nothing to bring you, my son, but a name unstained by a past full of the gravest temptations," was the lodestar of his life. Taking this into consideration, therefore, I did not scold the "silly fool," but explained to him in an affectionate way what the money was the father was sending to the family—money he had earned by working extremely hard, and frequently by pinching himself. I told the lad what he ought to be and might become, being strong and healthy, and that on this account his wish for money to spend on trifles gave his father pain. I wrote large and distinctly, adapting myself to the young joiner's powers of comprehension, and at the end fervently blessed him in his new walk in life.

The reading of this letter was carried on with constant interruptions, as I stopped to ascertain if I had interpreted the father's feelings and wishes rightly. From the beginning I was sure that this was the case, and became all the more certain of it as I read on. Each time I looked at him inquiringly, Stanisław answered me hastily: "Yes, yes, yes, that's just as I wanted it!" But the farther I read the shorter and quicker became the "Yes, yes." In the middle of the letter, it is true, he opened his lips once more, but I only saw that they were moving, for they did not utter a sound. I looked up again: his chin was resting on the table, and the tears were flowing down his pale cheeks. He did not make the restless movements peculiar to him when his feelings overflowed. He did not scrape his throat or blow his nose. He merely rested his chin on the table, and, sitting near me by the candle, with its light falling upon him, he quietly cried before us. He did not quiver or sob, but the tears, which had certainly not flowed from those hollow eyes for a long time, streamed from them now. When he was calm he looked at me with his large, intelligent eyes, and thanked me without raising his head. "May the Lord repay you—may the Lord repay you!" But Maciej, having already expressed his satisfaction by ejaculations and indistinct mumbling, now took courage at a longer pause to make quite a speech.

"H'm—that's fine! I've listened to lots of letters, because in the gold-mines different people wrote letters for me and others. And even here, though Z—— no doubt writes very well, he writes so learnedly, like a printed book, that you don't understand a word when you listen to it. For he puts in so many words folks don't use, you can see in a moment that he comes from a Jewish or a big family, and that he has never had much to do with the people. Now, your letter goes straight to one's heart, for it's human. Oh, poor fellow! He'll cry like an old woman at a sermon when he reads it. If you would also—but I daren't ask"—and his voice sounded really very shy—"if you would write a short letter like that to my people too, oh how my old woman would cry,—she would cry!"

While I read the letter to the priest, Maciej kept quiet, listening and possibly also beginning to consider what I was to write to his wife, if I answered to the hopes he had placed in me. But when I came to the passage in which I asked the priest about the Mass for the shoemaker's dead parents, there was a violent crash in the entrance to the kitchen, and Maciej stood before us in all his impressiveness. His appearance was so unexpected, and made with so much noise, that we looked at him in astonishment. Maciej was strangely altered, and even seemed to me to be trembling all over. He came out in silence, and standing just in front of us, with his feet wide apart as usual, he began to search for his pocket; but whether it was difficult to find in the folds of his baggy trousers, or whether for some other reason, he was a long time about it. Having found it, he drew out a small purse, and, after a long process of untying, for which he also used his teeth, he took out a crumpled three-rouble note. He stood a while holding this. At last he laid it on the table with a shaking hand, and began in an imploring, broken voice:

"If that's so—when he says the Mass, let him pray for us unhappy folks too: write that, sir. Let him pray to Almighty God and to the Holy Virgin—if it's only to bring our bones back there—and perhaps—perhaps They'll have mercy."

"Perhaps They'll have mercy," the shoemaker repeated like an echo, as he stood beside Maciej.

They stood before me—these two old men grown grey in adversity—as small children stand before a stern father, feeling their helplessness; the lame shoemaker with the hollow eyes, leaning on his stick, and that huge peasant with his hands hanging down and head bowed humbly, imploring this in a quiet whisper.

We should certainly have sat there a long while in painful musing if it had not been for the shoemaker. Stanisław was the first to rouse himself from the lethargy into which we had fallen.

"What the devil are we doing! Maciej, bestir yourself! The sausages are burning in there, and the brandy is getting stale! Eh, Maciej, look sharp!"

Maciej crept to the kitchen, and returned to us—not, to say the truth, very quickly—preceded by the smell of well-fried sausages. We shook off our lethargy so slowly, however, that even the brisk shoemaker had to make an effort to put a good face on it. His first toast was, "The success of the letters." To this Maciej responded with "Amen," and a sigh which might have come from a pair of blacksmith's bellows. The vodka did its work, however. Our recent emotion strengthened its effect, and after two glasses even an observant person would never have guessed what we had thought and felt here a few moments earlier, but for the letters lying in Stanisław's trunk. The last vestiges of sadness were charmed away by the little song which Stanisław began to sing:

"The splinters fall in showers
Where woodmen trees are felling;
Oh, good and pretty children
Are dear beyond all telling!"

But in his present cheerful frame of mind Maciej protested energetically against even this slight echo of sadness.

"Eh! just you shut up about your children! I've five of them, and I don't care as much for them all together as you do for the one."

The shoemaker evidently acknowledged the justice of this bold remark, for he passed it over in silence, and only proposed to Maciej with a gesture to put on the samovar. Maciej did his work in the kitchen noisily and cheerily. He had completely forgotten about his favourite place, "the little bench a bit stronger," and he returned to us without delay. His voice, always absolutely unsuited to the acoustic properties of the room, now sounded as perhaps it once did in those years on the fields of Mazowsze. When he spoke, it was simply a shout, for he did not modify the intonation by any expression whatever. He talked about his work, gesticulated, and waved his arms; when obliged to stand up, he moved suddenly, and the same when he sat down; he became indignant, and retracted his words; he squeezed his fingers together and spread them out; but he did all this slowly and accurately, just in the way he spoke. He said not a single word nor related a single fact without supporting and illustrating it by expressive mimicry, by a movement or a pose, which he always tried to make as near the original as possible. So when I returned to his protests against the shoemaker's sadness, and asked him: "Have you five sons, Maciej?" he answered: "Five, like the five fingers on my hand"; and, holding up his fist, he carefully spread out his fingers one by one. He laughed long and heartily at this, in the way that only children laugh, his whole body shaking.

But it was not only his laugh that was childlike; Maciej's big broad face, portraying his inward calm, reminded me of the face of a little child whose thoughts have as yet not influenced its features. In proportion to his height and breadth Maciej's head seemed to me smaller than it really was. His wide neck diminished it still more. But when he sat down, resting his hands on his knees in his usual manner, somehow his head disappeared entirely, and then from behind he was very like a pointed hayrick, while from the side he reminded me of those clumsy but impressive figures which people of past ages cut out in rocks and stone.

The longer I looked at him, the stronger became my wish to know this huge fellow rather better, and to ascertain something more about him. I therefore decided to profit by the occasion, which possibly might not soon occur again, and to spend the whole evening with the shoemaker.

Maciej chattered tremendously; he talked bidden and unbidden, and was even more loquacious than I could have hoped. Although he talked disconnectedly, with continual long digressions from the subject, I listened to him with growing interest. His anecdotes were chiefly about his life in the gold-mines. However familiar that life was to me from a number of different stories, I listened to him patiently, for I was interested in the very ticklish question of how he could have saved together several hundred roubles in surroundings where riches can always be accumulated, but rarely in a legitimate manner.

"I worked—slaved—in the gold-mines," Maciej continued on his return from the kitchen. "At first they put me to work underground, but the inspector saw me, and called out, 'Who's that huge fellow?' as if he'd never seen a big man before, the low scoundrel! He was told: 'That's Maciej, one of the Poles.' 'He's a good-looking Pole. Bring him here.' They sent for me, and I came and took off my cap"—Maciej touched his head. "But I didn't bow. Oh no! why should I? 'What a blockhead! Where do you come from?' he asked. 'Ha-ha! and where am I likely to come from if not from Poland!' Afterwards he asked again: 'Can you bake bread?' 'Is he making a fool of me, or what does he mean?' I thought to myself, but I didn't let on, and said: 'That's a woman's work, not a man's'—so I explained to him; devil knows if he understood or not! But he ordered them to take me on as baker's assistant.

"There just was drunkenness and thieving and carrying on in the bakery! Good God! But I didn't interfere; I just did what they said, and they didn't tell me to superintend or look after things. When my mates saw that I obeyed them, and worked enough for two, and didn't meddle with anything, they began to carry on worse than ever. It was like a tavern for the drinking that went on. The inspector came one, two, three times: everyone in the bakery was drunk; I was the only one at work and kneading the loaves of bread. He looked and went away. He came again the next day, and there was quite a battle going on in the house; they were having a drunken fight. He ordered them to be put into prison, and he asked me again: 'Now you know how to make bread; you've learnt it, haven't you?' So I understood he wasn't joking, and laughed: 'Oh yes, I've learnt it,' I said.

"He put me to be head baker. They dealt out all the flour used in the bakery for the whole week—and there was a lot used, for we baked for more than two hundred people. So I did my work, and weighed the flour to make it last out. Scarcely was the week over, when the inspector came again: 'Well, Maciej,' he said, 'have you had enough flour?' I just said nothing, but took him to the bakery and showed him what was left—nearly three sacks. When he saw that he opened his eyes ever so wide. 'Good! good!' he said; and he called the storekeeper and told him to make a note of how much was left, and to save half of it and give me half as reward.

"Now, in these gold-mines it just happens one way or the other: sometimes such a lot of people come you don't know where to put them, and sometimes, when they start running away, there aren't enough left even to go underground. And that's how it was there: a lot of work, and too few people to do it. First they took one man away from me, and afterwards a second, and after a week still more, so that I was left with one, and then quite alone for a few days. I was standing at the kneading trough and oven from sunrise to sunrise. When the inspector saw that I was without help, and the sweat was running off my forehead, he called out: 'Vodka! Let Maciej have as much as he wants! Drink as much as you like,' he said. I didn't stint myself; but a single glass makes one bad enough, so half a bottle was saved every day. This was my own, and in this way I got nearly a rouble a day.[2]

"But whether by slaving like this, or what not, I don't know how it was: anyway I got ill. My feet and arms seemed paralyzed all at once; dark spots came on my body, and my teeth got all shaky, like keys in an organ. 'Take him off to the hospital,' they said. The doctor said it was scurvy. Whether or no, it was a fact I got worse and worse. At last one of the miners lying in the hospital, an old Brodiaga[3], said to me: 'Don't you pay any attention to them or to the doctor, for they'll cure you for the next world. Listen to good advice. Send someone to the taiga for toadstools, fill a bottle with them, and after it has been standing a certain time and has got strong, drink a wineglass of it with vodka every day.' I did just as he told me, and after a week I was quite fit again.

'Afterwards I saw the Brodiaga coming along. I thought: 'He'll expect to be treated.' So I stood treat for him. He said: 'Well, what did you think of it?'

"'I think it was a good trick, but I don't want to do it a second time.'

"'You're right,' he said. 'Have you ever seen the cook draw the veins out of the meat when he's getting the inspector's cutlets ready?'

"'Oh yes! Rather!' I said.

"'Now, you see, if you stop here, they'll draw all the veins and all the strength out of you. You've saved a little money; go away from here, and don't look back.'

"I left the hospital, and went to get my 'time.' But it was a difficult business. 'Stop here,' they said to me, 'stop here, and we'll raise your wages.' And so on. But I didn't agree. 'Your money is good, but dear,' I answered. The inspector got very angry, and shouted, 'Ass!' And they counted it out to me: I had got a round sum of a thousand roubles, all but a hundred and fifty."

"Did you really drink that stuff, Maciej?"

"A-ah! It was the first medicine I ever took," he answered.

But the shoemaker, understanding my incredulity, set it aside by an excellent explanation:

"No fear! Even two bottles of toadstools wouldn't hurt a machine like that!"

Maciej disapproved of the expression.

"Am I a machine now? Why, you only see half of what I was!"

"Then, you were stouter formerly?"

"Oh yes! I tell you, I wasn't like this. What do I look like now? A greyhound grown thin! Is this an arm?" And he untwisted his shirt sleeve and showed us an arm of which a leg might have been jealous. "Is this a leg?" Drawing his wide trousers tight, he looked piteously at his leg measuring over a yard round. "I usedn't to be like this," he ended with a sigh.

Nothing could have given me more satisfaction than these sighs. But a good beginning had been made, for Maciej, who certainly very rarely experienced the relief of unburdening himself, was so excited that he required no stronger incentive than that I should listen to him with unfeigned interest. It was enough to repeat, "What then? Just so! Really!" oftener and more pressingly. Thus spurred on, each time Maciej's "Ha, ha!" became louder and his face redder, and when the samovar had boiled he declined to obey the shoemaker and would not pour out the tea.

"Can I never have a talk? When do I ever get a chance of speaking to anyone? You're in the shop; you know what to do and how to talk to people, but I don't. It's not only with those who come here; I can't do it even with our own people, I'm such a plain man. It's dull to be alone, and I'm losing flesh; but there's no one I can go to, for people get bored with me. The master here understands every word I say, and isn't surprised and doesn't laugh at anything. I can talk to him like one of my own family, and feel lighter at heart at once. Do pour out for yourself. I don't want that stupid tea."

Although shocked at this distinct subversion of the order of society, the shoemaker allowed himself to be mollified, and began to pour out tea. Maciej, freed from one of his most trying duties, became all the livelier.

We both settled ourselves on the sofa. Maciej was to tell me his past history from the beginning. He was as red as a peony, but, strange to say, he sat silent, and although I prompted him several times with, "Well, and what next, Maciej?" he did not speak. Yet his deep breathing showed that this silence did not mean speechlessness. On the contrary, it was thought slowly working and stirring him to expression.

Maciej sat upright, with his knees wide apart and both hands resting on them. He sat thus for some minutes, with eyes which seemed fixed on the far distance; he sat motionless as though he were already away in that distant scene which, possibly, was opening before him. Yet, when observed closely, his face was burning. I was on the point of putting a more urgent question to him, when Maciej, looking neither at me nor at the shoemaker, began as follows:

"You must have heard of a large river—it's swift and black—they call it Narew? Not far from that river there are three big villages, called Mocarze.

"I've seen many, many different villages, and I've looked at many different people. I've seen the big Tartar villages, and the Russian settlements, as large as towns, and the villages on the River Angara and behind Lake Baikal, and where the Poles are so well off;[4] but nowhere, nowhere have I seen villages like our Mocarze.

"There isn't a thing you can't find there. Everything's there. My God!" And Maciej stretched out his arms.

"And those meadows and fields and the hay timee! Oh! those young oak-woods, and the corn, too, like gold!

"Here everything is big, but somehow it's dreary. What can you see in the taiga? What's there to enjoy in the fields? It's like a grave all round you: a vulture crying above, a bear growling in the taiga, and that's all the pleasure you get! At home it's different.

"There, if you go out in the morning through the fields with the dew on them, and shout, it sounds like a bell ringing in the open air. You watch the cheerfulness of the animals, and listen to the birds chirping on the ground and above, and you feel cheerful too. And if you breathe the air coming from those fields and meadows, as if it came from a censer in church, you feel its strength going into you. I've never felt so strong anywhere as at sunrise at Mocarze, when I used to say 'Good-morning!' to the sun. Here the morning's no morning—there's no pleasure in it; none of the birds or animals or people know anything about it. At home it's different.

"I've seen so many countries; I've been through all this big Siberia, and a good bit of the Lake Baikal country, but I've never seen a country like ours anywhere. But I've learnt that since being here. Yes, here! Am I the only one? We've clever people at home—priests and gentlemen and peasants with heads on their shoulders—but none of them know what they have!"

"Each of these villages called Mocarze has its own name. They call the one that's the oldest, Korzeniste; the second, Suche; and the third, which is the newest, Mokry. I am from Mocarze-Suche.

"It's a big village. Pan Olszeski was our master, and we were his serfs. Everyone knows it's not very pleasant to be that. When I was about twenty, Olszeski took me into his service at the house.

"He was a very quick-tempered man, yellow, dry, and small—the very devil, I can tell you! He wasn't really bad, only when he was angry; but he got angry about everything, and then he'd just be beside himself with rage—oh my goodness! Yet not for long. He'd shout and run up and down and get yellower still; but when he'd finished you could say anything to him, and, though he'd tremble, he'd listen and say nothing. He was just. It can't be said that the young men liked him, but the older ones—the farmers—always told us: 'Don't take any notice of his shouting; his bark is worse than his bite.' And they were right. He never harmed and never worried people; but this I only knew later. At the time I only knew that Olszeski was bad-tempered, and I feared him like fire, and—well, every bad thing. But I don't know how it came about; the farther I went from him, the more he came after me. He was always at me, scolding, cursing, and shouting. But I remembered what my father had said: 'Don't take any notice of his being angry, but remember that he's just'; so I stood it—stood it and never said a word. And I should have stood it longer if Olszeski hadn't gone too far. But he said everything he could think of against me, and at last, on purpose to wound my feelings, he began to call me a 'stupid great booby' and 'greenhorn.' Even now I don't like to think about it. He happened to come into the yard. Though I was at work, and he didn't see me, and I ran away from him like a hare from a dog, he at once began to shout: 'Eh, there! you stupid great booby, you greenhorn!' His voice was like himself, thin and shrill, and so penetrating it sounded like a whistle. When he called me all those names I boiled over with rage. It was only he who thought me stupid, not my own people. There wasn't a fellow in the village equal to me, either with the fiddle at the inn or at the hardest field work. For I never shirked work any more than play. And I was so strong—I'm speaking seriously—not as I am now; if there was ever anything anyone couldn't do, Maciej did it.

"And then to be insulted like that, and go on standing it—why should I? So I thought, 'There's been enough of this, and I've had enough of it, too! With God's help I'll show him I'm not so stupid, and not such a booby.' I don't know if I could do it now, but at that time there wasn't a team I couldn't have held. When I was holding them from behind, you could have beaten the horses to death, they wouldn't have stirred. I hadn't tried with the carriage horses; the coachman wouldn't allow it. 'You'll get the landau smashed, and I'm responsible,' he said. But I thought: 'Let come what may, I'll try.'

"It was a Sunday when he ordered the horses to be put to, but not to go to church, for he was driving alone, only to go to the town. He got in, sat down, shut the door, and waited. He liked the horses to start off at once at a sharp trot. But I was behind. I put my feet wide apart to stand firm. I took hold of the side of the landau with one hand, and of the back with the other. My heart was going like a mill, for I was thinking: 'Perhaps I shan't be able to hold horses in such good condition.' But you're all right after the start. I gathered all my strength together, and strained forward till my joints cracked. The horses started—they started once, twice, and—didn't move a step.

"'Go on!' a shrill voice called out from the landau, while the mistress and the young ladies stood at the window waving their handkerchiefs.

"'Go on, blockhead!' and his shrill voice went into a squeak.

"But the old coachman must have guessed what was happening, for, when he saw the horses didn't move, he didn't whip them, so that there shouldn't be an accident. He didn't slash at them, but turned to the master and said: 'How can I start while Maciej is holding on?' Olszeski jumped as if he'd been scalded, and trembled so much he couldn't get his breath. The carriage was half open, so he turned towards me, quite green with anger, and looked me straight in the face. But I held on, and when once I'd looked at him I didn't take my eyes off him; my veins swelled from holding on to the carriage, and the blood went to my head. What I was like I don't know, but my master looked and looked. I thought: 'God knows what he'll do to me.' But he must have understood, for he only laughed, and said: 'How strong you are! How strong you are! But now let go, Maciej.' I let go, and the horses started off; I thought they would bolt."

Maciej sat down tired, for he had been reproducing the whole scene of holding back the carriage as accurately as possible before us. He had stood leaning sideways, had held the carriage with his hand, been tugged at by the powerful horses, and had looked his master threateningly in the face; even his eyes had become bloodshot, and his tightly clenched hands had swelled.

If, wearing his clumsy "juntas,"[5] grey-headed, bent, and but half his weight, he looked splendid and threatening, if his eyes flashed now, what must he have been like when he faced his master in defence of his human dignity?

"From that time," Maciej continued, after a short pause, "my master was different. Not all at once, it's true; for at first he avoided me, and, though he left off scolding, he never said a word for a long time. I thought to myself: 'I'm in for something worse; he's surely thinking out something for me I shan't forget.' But no. He began to talk to me, but always good-naturedly and kindly, and a year hadn't passed before I was high in his favour. If anyone had to be sent out with money, or go with the mistress or young ladies, no one might do it but Maciej; and later, when he knew me, he didn't tell me: 'Don't get drunk, don't be too long, and don't kill the horses'; he only said I was to go, and everything he had ordered was as right as if it had been written in a book. So he got fond of me. I never heard a bad word from him all the last years I was in his house. And I was very happy. But though I was happy there, I had my future to think of, too. Though my father often talked of it, I myself certainly shouldn't have troubled to get married in a hurry, and didn't think much about it. For why think of anything better when you're happy? And no one runs away from happiness. There was work, but there was plenty of fun.

"What a happy time the harvest at home used to be! And when our Mocarze fiddler played at the inn on Sundays, even the old people couldn't keep their feet still.

"And our girls! Hah! There aren't such girls anywhere. For example, do you ever see one like them here? When they were all together, and you came up, they were like flowers—like the lilies themselves. And when you heard them tittering, 'Hi! hi! hi!' and saw their bright eyes behind their aprons, you didn't know yourself that you were calling out: 'Heh there! Go ahead, you fellows! Now then, fiddler, strike up something lively! Come along, my dear!'"

Maciej was about to start off dancing, for he burst out with the 'Heh there!' so energetically that it set our ears tingling. But a scornful remark of the shoemaker checked him.

"They hid behind their aprons? What vulgar foolishness!"

Maciej, who had already started up, sat down, but would not allow the shoemaker's words to pass.

"Vulgar? Everyone knows it's not like in a town. But don't be disagreeable. Now, among these girls the best-looking seemed to me——"

"Kaśka?" interposed the shoemaker.

"No, not Kaśka, but Marya. She was the best girl in Mocarze, and though she had no mother, and was alone at home, she was tidy and hard-working, and everything round her was clean.

"In the field she always went at the head of the mowers. She could always be seen when she was standing in the corn, it never hid her. My Marya was a fine girl, well grown, and red like a poppy or cherries in the sun. And her body was so healthy—it was as hard as a nut. When I wanted to pinch her——"

"Did you pinch her cheek?" the shoemaker interrupted impertinently.

"Don't talk bosh! Am I a gentleman, or do I come from a town, that I should pinch a girl's cheek, to say nothing of the girl being my Marya? I pinched where we are all used to pinching the girls——"

The shoemaker was triumphant and smiled ironically. Obviously this peasant did not know the most elementary rules of genteel behaviour.

"A girl like a turnip, I tell you," Maciej continued. "Strong as my fingers are—but no—nothing to be done—you couldn't pinch her, anyhow.

"I courted her, and it seemed to me that she wasn't against it; for she was always looking at me, and danced best with me. So I thought to myself: 'I'll just see how I stand in this.' So one Sunday evening I watched her going off to the dance, and she had to climb over the fence near the Wojciecks' cottage. I stood and waited there. I heard her coming; I heard, because one can always hear one's girl coming a long way off. She came to the fence, lifted her foot, jumped on to the other side, and was just going to hop down, when I, who was watching all this, couldn't stand it any longer; I ran up to the fence and put my arm round her waist. You know, sir, there's a song which ends:

"'Maiden, turn not from me....'

"Well, I sang the song as I held her, and wanted to kiss her. But I hadn't finished the last words before she gave me such a slap between the eyes that it quite blinded me, and before I could take it in—thwack! she went on my jaw, first one side and then another. 'So there's a kiss for you, that's your kiss, you fine fellow! You just keep away from me!' she shouted, and thwacked and thwacked like a tadpole in the water. My word! how she did go for me! I was so taken aback I couldn't come to myself; I could only feel my cheeks swelling from the blows, for she was such a strong girl. At last she stopped and sat down on the fence, and began to cry and say:

"'I never expected a disgrace like this from you, Maciej. Am I just anyone, and not a respectable farmer's daughter, that you should put yourself in my way when I was coming across the fence?'

"When she said this, I understood; still, I wasn't able to come to my senses all at once, and out it slipped: 'But why?' I said. It was just as if I'd covered her with hot coals!

"'Why? Why?' she cried. 'Are you a little boy? Aren't you a farm labourer? You're a clever fellow, to begin courting and not to know how to make up to a respectable girl! Well, if you're such a fool, I'll tell you: the way to do it is through one's parents!'

"Now, that went to my heart so much I was ready to cry like a calf. I asked: 'Will you have me?'

"'Are you cracked? Doesn't my father know you?' she said.

"'And you, Marya?' I said.

"'Well, why not—of course, if father tells me.'

"'Ah!' I thought to myself, 'a girl like that's a good one; I'm lucky if I get her!' And, if I hadn't been careful not to vex her again, I'd have taken her into my arms once more. But someone came along, and down she jumped and ran to the dance; and back home I came, for my cheeks were as swollen as the white loaves father sometimes brought back from the fair at Lomza. I didn't have any supper, I went straight to bed; but the next day I went to my parents and told them all about it, and asked them to arrange the match at once. They were surprised I was in such a hurry; but I was obstinate, and begged for it. The worst was to know how it would be about the master. But it was no use, I couldn't do it without him; so I went and asked him, and he was very kind to me. He set me free from his service, and gave me a field ready sown as a start, and a farm of twenty acres.

"We put in our banns, and had a wedding such as the oldest people in Mocarze didn't remember. For though my parents and her parents weren't so very rich, they were well-to-do farmers; and as to the drink, the master gave that. We did dance and all enjoy ourselves!"

Maciej stopped abruptly.

"Those seven years I lived with my wife were the only ones in which I have really lived," Maciej began again slowly and emphatically, as though weighing each word. "Marya was a wonderful girl, but she was a still better wife.

"A child was born almost every year about Christmas time. But she never had any trouble with it, for she could have nursed three at once. They were all boys, and they are all as like me as peas in a pod."

The sadness we could hear in Maciej's voice, and the way in which he paused, showed that the bright part of the story was now nearly ended.

"The home was clean and tidy, both the food and clothes," Maciej added in a measured tone. "And as to the farm, there's no need to speak of that, either. I was successful all round; I only wanted the moon!"

Maciej became silent, and somehow we felt that with his last words the golden thread of his life had snapped. We felt that as the story went on it would be different, and we longed for it to continue as it had been. Therefore, although knowing it to be vain, we deceived ourselves by the hope that we should still hear a merry laugh, and watch the continuance of that tranquil life, though, maybe, only for a moment longer. But, rocked by memories, Maciej let his head fall on his broad chest, and remained mournfully silent. Possibly he was chasing the last gleams of those brighter days which had disappeared without return, or possibly, as he looked, the days of fear and pain emerged from the twilight of the distant past.

The snowstorm was raging outside, and the wild howling of the wind could be heard distinctly now in the quiet of the little room. Suddenly it gave a louder moan, and shook the shutter as though trying to blow it off its hinges. Maciej must have heard this, for he raised his head, and, as if to put an end to his own thoughts, spoke at last.

"Perhaps everything might have been the same to-day, if it hadn't been for that misfortune.... If it hadn't been for that misfortune," he repeated slowly, as we both instinctively moved closer to him to comfort him.

"But directly the storm[6] broke out life became different in our village. All the strong young fellows went off, and I shouldn't have kept at home either, if the master hadn't said: 'No; what has to be done there can be done without you, and you can be useful here.' Well, he knew better than I did; so I stayed. Yet at first Marya and I both thought: 'Why is he keeping me here?' for I was sitting doing nothing for weeks. But suddenly one night, just before it got light, there was great excitement in the village. Some horsemen came riding up, people began to tear about, and there wasn't time to say two Paternosters before it was all round the village: 'They're coming! They're coming!' How the news spread so quickly, just like a cry, Lord only knows! But as it spread, every single living thing was on its feet at once, and rushing out into the road. Only a few had time to dress, and most people ran out as they were, in their shirts.

"Then the master sent for me. I was always at work from that time, and it was rare for me to spend a night at home. I knew all the country for ten miles round, so, if anything was wanted, it was I who had to go everywhere. With or without a letter, on horseback or on foot, I was on the trot for whole days and nights, taking and bringing messages, or acting as guide to someone. I could scarcely come home and sit down to supper before the master knocked at the window; I put a bit of bread and cheese in my coat pocket, and off I set. Marya cried to herself, and she very rarely missed going to Mass. But God took care of me. I didn't like riding, because horses easily came to grief under my weight; it was better for me to walk.

"So half a year passed. I remember coming back from my last journey. I had been crossing a bog in the wood that only anyone knowing the way could get through. But I came through it, and stayed at home a day—in fact, two—and they didn't send for me from the house. I waited a third, and nobody came.

"'What's the matter? Is he ill, or what's up?' I asked the household servants.

"'No,' they said, 'he's out walking and driving; but he isn't like himself, for he's even stopped shouting.' I asked again: 'Didn't he send for me?' 'No,' they said, 'he didn't send for you.' What had happened? I couldn't get clear about it. Marya was glad—like a silly woman. 'Ah!' she said, 'you've become such a gadabout, you don't like being at home now!' But when I said to her, 'Shut your mouth, Marya, or I'll shut it for you!' she saw there was no joking, and stopped talking. On the fourth day I couldn't stand it; I dressed and went to the master's house. In spite of having been allowed to go to the master's room at any time of day or night all that half-year, I went into the kitchen, and let him know that I had come.

"He called me in, and I went in and bowed, but he was a bit strange. He seemed cross, and was walking about, searching for something among his papers, and didn't look at me when he spoke to me. So far he had always looked straight at me when he said anything, and then I had understood. This time he didn't.

"'Well, well, Maciej,' he said, 'what have you to tell me?'

"I was very much surprised, for what should I have to tell him? But since he asked, I said: 'I've come to see if there are any messages to be taken, sir.'

"'Yes,' he answered the same way as before. 'I was just thinking of sending for you. There's a letter to be taken to Korzeniste.'

"He sat down, wrote it, and gave it to me.

"I wasn't pleased, for I knew there was nothing going on at Korzeniste; but, on the other hand, I thought it was stupid of me, for how should I know everything? So, though this didn't seem to me to be right, I felt cheered up. I took the message quickly, and came back and asked when he wanted me to come again.

"'Oh,' he said, 'there's sure to be nothing urgent now; and if there is, I'll send for you.'

"Again he didn't look at me as he said this, and seemed strange. That hurt me, for I knew that he was sending people on errands whom he never used to send. But I daren't speak; I went and waited.

"And I waited again for several days; no news of the master. I didn't leave my farm during that time, for truth's truth, and through my always being away there was a lot to do at home. I tidied up my clothes and went to see people.

"On Saturday evening I went to the inn. When I passed the Wojciecks' cottage where the fence is, some people were standing at the corner of the house. They didn't see me coming. I came near, and heard them talking quite loud. When I got nearer and they saw me, they looked at each other, and not another word was spoken. I said, 'Christ be blessed!' but only Jedrek mumbled, 'In Eternity!'[7] I thought they were perhaps talking about something among themselves, so I passed on.

"It was the same at the inn. There was a noise going on there, because it was the day before a festival, and, as is usual then, there were a lot of peasants sitting drinking vodka or beer. When I went in, they looked at me and there was silence in a moment, just as if the word had been given for it. I paid no attention, I came in, sat down, and ordered my glass; but I saw that people didn't talk to me as if I belonged to them. 'What's up? Good Lord! is it because I've worked for the master, or what?'

"But they've always known that; and they also know that, though I've served under the master, I was really working for another reason; they've known that a long time, and it's never been like this before. So it must be something else.

"I went home quite upset. When Marya looked at me, she saw in a moment that there was something wrong, and began at once, like a woman does: 'What's the matter, my dear? tell me what it is.' I saw she was thinking—Lord knows what; so I told her: 'People won't speak to me as they used to; why, I don't know.' And I told her about it. Then Marya clasped her hands, and said: 'I know whose fault it is: no one's but that scoundrel Mateus.' Now, Mateus was my elder brother, and though there's a proverb, 'The apple falls near the tree,' this time it wasn't true; for neither my parents nor grandparents were that sort, and he was nothing more nor less than a scoundrel. I asked: 'How is it his fault?' 'It's his fault,' Marya said. 'People speak badly of him; not to my face or to our family, but I and my father have heard them say: "They are always off in different directions." And others say: "Honour among thieves"; what Maciej hears at the house[8] Mateus sells to the German colonists or to the Jewish bailiff; and so on.' I didn't listen to any more; my hair stood on end.

"I asked: 'Why didn't you tell me this before?' and lifted up my hand to strike her. But Marya pulled me up.

"'Are you mad?' she said, 'shouting as if you were possessed! I wanted to speak to you before, but you always told me to shut my mouth. Have you forgotten?'

"I felt quite weak, and my feet trembled as if they were coming off. I couldn't stand.

"'But, good Lord!' I said, 'that can't be true! Even if it were, is one brother to answer for another, or a father for his son?' I couldn't sleep all night; all sorts of thoughts kept coming into my head. I made up my mind I would go to church next day. I prayed, but I could understand nothing. I didn't dare to go up to the house, but hoped God would help me.

"When I went to church I didn't stop or look at people. I prayed all through the Mass, and got calmer, and made up my mind to go to my brother and ask him what he was really doing. However, I noticed people looking at me when church was over, as they'd watch a wolf. As I went across the cemetery near a crowd of boys, I heard such bad things being said that again my feet trembled. 'Oh, my God, save me!' I thought, and daren't look up. I came home. My father was there. I told him all this: Mateus was disgracing us; should I go and speak to him?

"'You ought to have done it long ago,' my father said. 'But be careful, for devil knows what he'll do to you!'

"'He can't do worse than he's done,' I said, and went. I crossed myself with holy water. I really had to shout at Marya, for she clung to me like a tipsy man to a fence. 'Don't go, don't go! may the dogs eat him!' she said. 'If people don't know it already, they'll soon see that you've no dealings with him.' I went, and after saying, 'Christ be blessed!' I said at once:

"'I've business with you, Mateus; I want to talk to you.'

"'All right,' he said.

"'It's business I want to have a good talk to you about privately, and at once.'

"He looked confused, and plainly guessed what it was, for he said:

"'Let's go into the backyard.'

"'Certainly not into the backyard,' I said; 'there are people about there, looking. Let's go into the field.'

"When I said this to him he looked askance at me, and I'm sure he thought something bad was up, for he said:

"'All right, but sit down and wait a moment. I'm going into my neighbour's, and shall be back before long.'

"He really came back at once, and we went behind the stackyard into the field. There was a wood at the edge of the field. As we went through the stackyard, we found Walek standing behind the barn—he was a great friend of my brother's—a disagreeable fellow. When my brother saw him, he smiled to himself in a nasty way. A shudder went through me: 'It's plain that what people say is true,' I thought, and went along depressed, and didn't speak because Walek was with us.

"'Well, Maciej, say what you have to say,' Mateus said, and looked at me as if he were making fun of me and were quite sure of himself.

"That made me feel worse, and I went along with them sadder still. We came like that to the wood, and there my brother began to talk very fast. I remember every word.

"'Ah!' he said, 'you wanted to talk to me; but I see it's I who'll talk to you. Perhaps,' he said, 'it's as well you've come to me; just listen to good advice. It's plain you're not doing yourself much good with all this running about, for I hear you run round the master's house like a dog. Now, I can fix you up in a business which will bring you in more than two years' wages. The German colonist——'

"I didn't hear any more, and it's plain he didn't look at me when he said this; for if he'd looked, the idiot! he'd have run away. The blood rushed to my head, left it, and rushed back again. I roared like a wild beast, and sprang on them. I couldn't speak, but I had terrific strength. I twisted his hands together on to his back with my left hand, as if they were string, took him by the middle, and lifted him up. Walek's hand I squeezed so hard that the bones cracked, and he stood there as lifeless as a stone.

"I let him go, and took my knife, which I always carried in the leg of my boot, and handed it to Walek. 'Hit here!' I shouted, and held Mateus' left side towards him. He had to strike. The knife was sharp, and went in up to the handle. The blood poured out in a stream.

"They took me up the very next day.

"'Was it you?' they asked.

"'Yes.'

"'Why did you do it?' they asked. I told them. They didn't ask any more; I was condemned for life."

I looked at Maciej. He was as pale as a corpse, whiter than the white wall against which he was sitting. He did not move his hands, but his fingers twitched convulsively.

I felt sorry that I had induced him to live through that terrible scene once more, and looked into his eyes, reproaching myself. But as I looked I turned pale myself; his eyes were pure and bright as a spring of water, calm and innocent as the eyes of a child.

The northerly gale raged outside, whirling the snow round impetuously. I had a feeling of horror as I returned through the solitary miserable streets to my empty house on the bank of the Lena, The wild gusts of wind echoed from the taiga and the mountains surrounding it with dreadful groans, and I ran through the snowdrifts pursued by those groans.

But also indoors it was a terrible night for me. The gale howled round the walls with increasing fury, the taiga groaned more and more sadly. And when I sprang from my bed and wearily pressed my burning forehead to the frozen window-pane, listening to that wild voice unconsciously, I heard those groans issue from the taiga as if pursued by the fiercest gusts of the storm, and mingle in one imploring groan: "Oh, Most High, Most Holy, forgive!"

TWO PRAYERS

By ADAM SZYMAŃSKI
I.

Long ago, very long ago—or so it seems to me, for I see those days now as through a mist—for the first time in my life I heard a fine men's choir singing in unison in one of the largest churches of Podlasia. The church was filled to overflowing with a compact mass of human beings, who joined in the chants which streamed from the choir like burning lava. Loud at first, their voices passed into sobbing until they died into a low and yet lower groan, imploring and scarcely audible.

My small body shivered as with fever. I pressed my burning forehead to the cold floor and folded my hands, stretching them out to God and begging Him to quiet the sorrowful sounds which were tearing my childish heart; I prayed that those people in the choir might sing less sadly, and that they might feel brighter and happier. "Have mercy, have mercy, Lord," I repeated with so much faith and confidence that I held my breath and waited after each appeal for the sound of a voice like thunder, which would smother the prayers and painful groans, so that the joyful Christmas hymn or the triumphant Easter "Allelujah" might flow from the choir with healing balm upon the crowd of praying people. The last sobs were hushed; the last sighs of a thousand breasts fell with a deadened echo from the high vaulting on to the bowed heads praying below, and oppressed the suppliants with a sense of universal pain. Bent to the ground, they humiliated themselves almost to extinction. I was not conscious of those many bent heads, but only of their eyes, which, fixed on the figure of Christ, were addressing a last prayer to Him.

The faintest echo of prayers and sighs was lost in the deep vaulting; dead silence—an awful silence—reigned throughout the church; it seemed as if all the prayers of a thousand faithful worshippers had been brought before a void, were dissolving into nothingness, and perishing—unheard.

The awe of such a moment is terrifying, and the soothing strains of music alone make it endurable. Those tightened lips were silent, and the bruised hearts raised no sigh; but soft tones, resembling human voices, were floating above amid the vaulting, and descended faintly through the heavy atmosphere.

The lifeless organ had become animate under the touch of human fingers, and the crowd of worshippers, hearing their own supplications as if rising from a stronger heart than theirs, were soothed by the musician's skill. Imploring and praying with fresh confidence, they were strengthened by renewed faith, until at length tears came, and in those tears they found relief.

It seemed as if the choir had been waiting for this moment, for scarcely were the tears seen on the people's faces before it sent forth another moving entreaty, and all hearts burnt with fresh ardour.

Once again the people groaned and prostrated themselves, weighed down by the load of sighs drawn from their aching hearts.

I groaned with them. I prayed still more fervently, stretching out my hands more beseechingly to the stern God. I held my breath still longer, always expecting a visible miracle. But God was silent, and my childish hopes were shattered.

The choir led the people in a new and still more ardent prayer.

"O God, my God, when will this dreadful praying end?"

I felt my strength was failing me, and that to pray thus any longer would be impossible. I clung to my dear father, who was praying beside me, hoping he would soothe me, as was his way. But my father did not see me, although he bent down to me, for his eyes were full of tears, and I only heard his heated whisper:

"Pray, my child; pray, dear boy, and never forget this wonderful prayer!"

So I prayed once more, concentrating all my thoughts and feelings in this one prayer. The perspiration stood in large drops on my forehead; I held my breath still longer, and waited—waited in vain! God was silent. But the choir raised a fresh entreaty.

"O God, my God, why art Thou so long in hearing us?"

It was so hot and close; a terrible sensation came over me now. My head seemed on fire; the singing of the choir, the sound of the organ, the human groans and sighs, all mingled in a chaotic whirr in my ears. This whirr passed gradually into a measured peal, commencing slowly, becoming quicker later, at first near, then farther off, resembling the flapping of a large bird's wings. The grey smoke of the incense reddened before my eyes. It flashed into my weary mind that our prayers could not reach God. I looked up and flung myself into my father's arms. There, above—it seemed to me—like birds assembling for their autumn flight, but confined by the high vaulting of the church, the human prayers were circling and clamouring. Streaks of sunlight were penetrating the narrow church windows, and all the bitter human groans and pain and tears were beating their wings against them—pressing towards the sun.

"Father! father! let us go outside to pray—there, in the sunshine! God Almighty will hear us there, and nothing will hinder our prayers."

II.

The winter of 18— began unusually early in X——, as in all parts of the Yakutsk district. Already by the end of August the night frosts had shrivelled and blackened foliage of every kind, depriving it of its natural beauty. The broad stretch of valley in which the town lay now looked barer than usual; only miserable yurta were to be seen, no large buildings, nothing even distantly approaching the populous villages in Poland, which are so cheerful in autumn. During that early although short autumn I was attacked for the first time by home-sickness in all its dread severity.

Halfway through November the famous "sorokowiki"[9] began, which frequently last without interruption for two months. But the malady to which I had fallen a victim had developed rapidly and completely worn me out a long while before the "sorokowiki" came. Being a novice in such matters, I did a number of things which in themselves are not unwise, and are practised by experienced men, but only to a very limited extent. All who have suffered from nostalgia carefully avoid everything which may bring about a return of the malady; they talk unwillingly of their past, are obstinately silent when their native country is mentioned, and in public show a strange, incomprehensible indifference to all that should be dear to them. Of course, this indifference is assumed. At first I did not understand this strange fact. But later on, when I had been there longer, I realized that people who were seemingly hardened and indifferent were sheltering their suffering hearts beneath a breast-plate of despair, and that they were continuing their existence in the world by a great effort. I understood that this indifference is a form of heroism—an unassuming form, it is true, as heroism shown in misery always is, but heroism nevertheless.

People of all ranks and positions cover themselves here with this shield of indifference and assumed forgetfulness, some with more consciousness of what they are actually doing, and with more perseverance, others with less. But, among the seemingly indifferent, without question those most remarkable for strength of will are the peasants. It needs a long, long time before a spark can be kindled from the deep grief of a peasant; but when the fire has broken out it burns so fiercely that a man either hides from the glare or stares in dismay.

I had struggled with this severe illness for some months already and by the time Christmas Eve came I was straining after everything that recalled home, with the unhappy perversity with which a drunkard's thoughts run on spirits, or the thoughts of a lunatic on his mania. A letter received some days beforehand enclosing the symbol of Christmas, the wafer broken into small pieces,[10] had poured oil on the fire. I had read that letter through countless times, and as I now ran to and fro in my room, like a squirrel shut up in its round cage, I was no longer thinking of the letter alone. I had drunk all the poison of memories which the past sleepless nights had called forth in feverish haste without a moment's respite, and my harassed and exhausted imagination could go no farther. The day which had awakened so many remembrances and brought me so much suffering had come. My only desire was to spend the evening in such a way as to drain the cup of treacherous sweetness to the dregs, and surround myself with an atmosphere which would revive the irrevocable past—if but for a moment and but remotely—and would suggest new and actual pictures to nourish my exhausted imagination; although these might be of the coarsest, they would give it food for new visions, fresh hallucinations.

There were some hospitable Polish houses in X—— at the time, and Christmas was being celebrated in one or two of them. Yet I could not bring myself to go to any of them. It can easily be conjectured that on this day I wished to break away from the oppressive bonds of conventionality, and to spend Christmas Eve beyond the border-line of "society."

Imagine yourself walking in the evening, when there is a hard frost, through the empty streets of X——, and coming to the end of Cossack Street; you would then find yourself at a point whence the smaller part of the town stretches far away before you. The old mud-choked riverbed separates it just at that spot from the principal part. If the frost is very bitter, you will remain there with all the greater pleasure to enjoy the sight in front of you. A number of little lights, bright or pale, strong or flickering, are continually visible here, even through the mist of snow. In an uninhabited and desolate country the sight of any fair-sized colony is so attractive that I never once walked this way without feasting my eyes on so visible a proof of man's strength and vitality. I knew every house there: near at hand the brightly lighted houses of the richer tradesmen and officials; farther off the Cossacks' houses, like yurta; still farther the house of the shoemaker and church clerk, and Jan Piętrzak's forge; still farther, scarcely visible through the frozen panes, the feeble little lights from the Yakut yurta; and beyond them—the end of life, a boundless snowy space.

Oh, how cold it must be there! And how forsaken, how powerless a man feels amid those plains banked up with snow, glistening with ice, darkened by gloomy taiga, and exhaling cold, cold, and only cold!

Well do I remember how I trembled and my heart beat more quickly when I stopped on the hill, as usual, some weeks before Christmas, and noticed for the first time a very small fire shining through the foggy light from the desolate space which commenced beyond the Yakut yurta. It disappeared, and showed again. Good God! was it a phantom? I could not believe my own eyes, and rubbed them once or twice. But there, remote from human dwellings, this lonely fire flickered in the distance more and more distinctly. I stood for a long while before I guessed that this solitary firelight was shining from the horrible, execrated house, the house the inhabitants of the place avoided in fear. People had died from smallpox in it some years before, and to-day any of the local townsmen would sooner die than enter it. I could not guess in the least, therefore, who had dared to light a fire there at night. A Yakut was just passing me, so I stopped him, and, explaining what I wanted as well as I could, I asked if he knew how there came to be a fire in the old hospital. The Yakut listened attentively as long as he did not understand what I was asking. But as soon as he began to take it in he started back several steps, and when at last he thoroughly grasped it he tore off his cap, screamed out in an inhuman voice, "Kabýs abasà!"[11] and fled terrified.

The next day I learned that the plague-stricken house was permanently inhabited by some Poles, people without a roof to shelter them and with nothing to look forward to. From time to time people whose misfortunes deprived them of other shelter also took refuge there for a short time.

In this way a small colony had formed in the desert solitude beyond the town, whose members were of two sorts, permanent and temporary. During the last few weeks I had been a frequent guest in this lonely little colony, and now, after some deliberation, I decided to spend Christmas Eve there.

I set out about five o'clock, relying on the kindness—or unkindness—of the frost, which, if it had sent out its murderous "chijus," could have completely upset my plans by driving me to the nearest acquaintance's house. But, fortunately for me, although the frost was fiendish, it was as silent as the grave. The terrible "chijus" had not yet left its Polar hiding-place, and the air was absolutely still. Thanks to this circumstance, I reached the place unharmed.

The echo of my footsteps, with the creaking snow under my boots, played sharply and shrilly round the two unheated rooms through which I was obliged to pass in order to reach the inhabited part of the house. It seemed to be even colder here than out of doors. The windows were boarded up. But although in the impenetrable darkness I hit against fragments of pots and other useless lumber at every turn, and they tumbled about or broke with a crash, though the door grated on its rusty hinges, none of the people living there even looked out or paid any attention to it. At last I came into the inhabited part of the house.

It was not much lighter in the large room than in those through which I had just passed. A thin tallow candle on a shoemaker's low bench barely lighted one corner of the room. Two people were working at the bench.

The one sitting nearer me, a tall thin man, unmistakably a born shoemaker, was knocking wooden pegs into a sole with an expert and sure hand. He had not been long in the town, but he already had plenty of work, and would be certain not to remain long in this solitude.

The second, sitting farther off, a handsome man, was considerably shorter than Pan Józef. He was planing and polishing a heel, but slowly, without that deftness with which Pan Józef worked. One glance at the short shoemaker's face would have been enough to convince the most ardent opponent of all theories on heredity that this man had not always sat at a cobbler's bench.

As a matter of fact, Pan Jan Horodelski had once been a medical student; later ... but what he was later could not be told in two evenings. He had now been a shoemaker for five years, and, to speak the candid truth, a drunken shoemaker. His bad habit did not allow him even to think of carrying on business for himself; he therefore wandered round to all the local workshops, using other people's tools, and finding life very hard. Each master took a large percentage for the tools, and it is probable that Pan Józef charged him no less than other masters did.

His spirit had once been proud and audacious, but life had bruised it and trodden it into the dust. Some souls emerge thence not only beautiful and noble, but even strong. Horodelski had not that strength which braves all storms, and was now a permanent inhabitant of this solitude. His days were numbered; the intellect and knowledge he once possessed made him now fully conscious of his condition and filled up his cup of bitterness, the depth of which was known only to himself.

It was either the seal of death on his forehead, or possibly other and deeper reasons, which gave his face its particular expression. I said before that it was the face of a very handsome man, and I ought to add that it also expressed that gentleness and tenderness which belongs essentially to feminine beauty, and that it was stamped with indescribable sadness. He varied a good deal in his behaviour; his way of expressing himself and his manners frequently betrayed the influence of the surroundings in which he had been living for long past. Frequently—though not always—he could control himself, however, and then there appeared on his face a new sign of the manhood not yet completely crushed—namely, a blush of shame at his present position.

The shoemakers, as became busy men, did not even move on their stools when I entered. I therefore took off my things and brushed away the hoar-frost in silence, and it was only when I went up nearer to them that they both raised their bent heads, welcoming me with a friendly smile. As he was holding his pegs in his teeth, Pan Józef was able to offer me his hand, dropping it again immediately with a mechanical movement, and murmuring something indistinctly. Horodelski, after giving his greeting, looked at the heel, still unfinished, and, setting the boot on the ground, exclaimed with a sigh: "Well, that's finished!"

This was his favourite expression.

"What's finished?" I asked, however.

"Everything," came the equally stereotyped answer.

"Except the heel," Pan Józef muttered, taking the last peg from his teeth.

"It's possible the heel may get done too—that is, of course, if I don't leave this cursed ruin and go back to the church clerk," Horodelski answered quickly.

"Are you uncomfortable here, or what's up?" chaffed Pan Józef. "The Lord be praised, it's a good workshop, there are enough tools—and rooms, too; if you like, you can dance a quadrille."

But Horodelski did not listen, and continued:

"Yes, it may very possibly be that I shall give up shoemaking, if only for as long as I stay with the clerk. I shall leave it just because this shoemaker has made it as clear as day to me that I am no good at my trade, and can only be assistant to a bungling clerk."

Pan Józef tittered, highly pleased, and was just preparing to answer suitably, when a grave bass voice interrupted him.

"You may go to the clerk or not, but you'll never be a shoemaker."

The bass voice came from a dark corner of the same room. I therefore looked more attentively in that direction.

On a low plank bed, with his head bent forward, and emptying his pipe, sat a stalwart peasant, known as Bartek the Shepherd.

"Why not?" I asked, greeting the speaker.

"Why not?" Bartek answered. "Because no one can escape his destiny. A dog can't become a bitch, nor a woman a man."

"That is quite a different matter."

"So you'd think; but it's really all the same. Take me, for example. No one could say of me that I'm work-shy, yet nothing I have to do with ever comes off. And why?—Why? Because I'm not at my own work. So though I work and don't drink, I'm wasting like sheep in rough weather. I'm already more like a dog at a fair than a man,—only there's no fair. I saw that from the moment I came here. For isn't it a queer thing that a land like this, with rivers like the sea, mountains as big as the Łysia Góra at home, meadows with grass up to your middle, should have no sheep! Our shepherds are wise men; they can bewitch you and free you from spells, and have remedies for this and that; yet if you told them that in all this big country there are no sheep, they wouldn't believe you."

Bartek was a temporary inhabitant of this desert solitude. He was a very respectable man, but a kind of fatality hung over him; he was industrious and honest, yet he had never been able to find an occupation in which he could display his qualities and draw attention to himself. He had come here not long beforehand, attracted by the promises of some emigration agents. The promises had not been fulfilled, and Bartek, taking advantage in the meantime of this shelter, was only waiting for the frosts to abate a little before setting out on his return journey. He was a grave man—in fact, almost too serious. He did not care for idle talk, and rarely started a conversation; but when he did speak, it was always laconically and with decision, brooking no contradiction. As the representative of a class which for long ages had been fairly privileged, he was an ardent Conservative, and did not admit the desirability of social reform. "A dog is a dog, and a sheep is a sheep," was his maxim. He raised the authority of his moral leaders almost to a religious cult, and it was not always safe to express an opinion before him, which even remotely reflected on the authority he acknowledged.

"Who says so?" Bartek would ask threateningly on such occasions. And when he was not too much irritated, and able to control himself, he would shake his thick fist in the speaker's face, and solemnly announce:

"Only fools talk like that!"

In the other equally large room two more permanent inhabitants of this solitude were to be found: the locksmith, Porankiewicz, and the ex-landowner, once Pan Feliks Babiński.

If Horodelski was a man standing on the edge of a precipice, Porankiewicz had rolled to the very bottom long ago. When I went into the room, he was scraping together something near the little table which he called his bench. He was pale, thin, and very small, and appeared still smaller owing to his stoop; few quite old men would walk more bent.

"Do hold yourself straight just for once," I often used to say to him.

"Hah, hah, hah!" Porankiewicz would laugh good-naturedly; "only the ground, the ground, my dear sir, will straighten me. I have sat working from morning till night since I was ten years old, and even steel gets bent at last."

This man's life was a real Odyssey—only he, poor wretch! was no Odysseus. Ill-fortune had driven him through all parts of Siberia, and it was his lot to breathe his last in the worst of them.

Babiński was asleep when I went in, but our conversation woke him, and he got up. Tall and broad-shouldered, he had a strong physique, and his dark face with large projecting eyebrows and surrounded by a beard as black as coal, always had a stern expression. I never saw him moved to tears; when something touched him very deeply, he would only blink hard and stretch out his hand for the vodka. He was indefatigable and competent and knew how to work and had worked like an ox until two years previously, when he had begun to drink desperately. "He has either been 'overlooked' or he has a screw loose," Bartek used to say of him. So now he seemed to be lost irretrievably, although under favourable circumstances he might perhaps yet draw himself out of the abyss into which he had rolled; for he was a man of exceptionally strong character.

There are black cart-horses in Russia, called "bitiugs," which are bad-tempered, tall, and uncommonly strong. These animals walk with an even, measured step, and without the least effort. When you inquire what weight they are drawing, you will find that it is at least sixty poods, and they frequently draw a hundred.

Babiński was like a "bitiug"; he even walked with a "bitiug's" step. When he slouched along with his big strides, it was never possible to keep pace with him. He always did the shopping in the town—bread, meat, and vodka—for no one walked as quickly as he, and no one could stand frost, however severe, as he could.

He was a very hard man, and however much there might be weighing upon him, no one would have guessed it;—he was a real "bitiug." He also possessed a certain shrewdness, which often saved him from sinking altogether. It was he who had occupied this solitary house, and was the host de jure; but what was still more remarkable was that he had succeeded in finding a Yakut woman, as hideous as hell, who had consented to be cook in the colony, and was as honest as only savage people can be. Eudoxia was thus the sixth soul in this lonely place.

Not all the inhabitants agreed to the festive celebration of Christmas. Bartek, and, stranger still, Horodelski, were most strongly opposed to it. "No, never!" Horodelski persisted. "I will drink as much vodka as you like, and eat what you give me—but Christmas? No!" And he only gave way after Bartek's refractoriness also had been softened by unusual eloquence on Porankiewicz's part.

The usual order of these social gatherings was that first of all Babiński rushed off without delay for provisions, and quickly returned with flour, butter, "pępki,"[12] and a large bottle of wine. Having stilled our hunger a little, and refreshed ourselves by a good glass of wine, we went out into the front room in order not to hinder the preparations which Eudoxia was making under Porankiewicz's direction. He was immensely proud of the honour shown him, and threw his head back, as he always did when trying to hold himself straighter, assuming an air of extreme gravity. He was so deeply moved he was almost unable to speak, and instead of words gave indistinct grunts which, especially at first, nearly choked him. Ultimately the grunts ceased, and the sounds proceeding from the kitchen, of hissing butter, logs being split, and dough kneaded, told us that, having overcome his emotion, Porankiewicz was directing culinary affairs in his own way.

Things were now becoming noisier in the front room. Bartek and Horodelski, relaxing their restraint, were already growing boisterous. They began to recall and count up how many years it was since they had last kept Christmas Eve; and when Bartek remarked that it would be worth while "getting a little clean to sit down to such a great festivity," a public washing and changing began, as though everyone were preparing for a ball.

Pan Józef produced a very fetching collar, reaching halfway up his cheek, and ornamented his throat with a fascinating tie, made out of a checked handkerchief. Bartek pulled a small bag out of the cupboard, and, after rummaging in it for a long time, took out a threadbare piece of cheap ribbon, which he tried unsuccessfully to tie round his neck. His clumsy, unaccustomed hands quite refused to obey him, and the ribbon slipped through his fingers. But attracted by the sight of the shoemaker's tie, Bartek turned to him with the request: "Help me with this, will you?" The shoemaker set himself to the task, yet he either undertook it carelessly or murmured something about the shabbiness of the ribbon; for only when Bartek had said in a low voice, "But it comes from home," the shoemaker answered "A-ah!" in a different tone, and, leading Bartek to the light, arranged a tie for him with which "one might dare to go courting." Bartek walked about with this as if he had swallowed a poker. Then, when Babiński also pinned on a freshly starched collar, and Horodelski sported an antiquated jacket, on which he had been working for the last half-hour to get out the stains, the external appearance of our whole party harmonized with its inner sense of festivity.

Of the whole party, I repeat; for, when the door of the next room opened wide, Porankiewicz appeared dressed equally smartly in a long, threadbare coat, and although his collar was smaller, his tie was by no means inferior to the shoemaker's.

Porankiewicz cleared his throat once or twice—indeed, he cleared it a third time. Holding the door with one hand, and waving the other towards us, he said with a solemn bow:

"Dinner is ready!"